fore him. "Come into the house and let
me give you something to eat."

For answer Cary gently imprisoned her face in his hands. "Honey, I
can't," he said, his eyes grown sad again. "Just fix me up
something--anything you can find. I'll munch it in the saddle."

For a moment their lips clung and then she stepped back with a broken
sigh. "I'll do the best I can, but oh! how I wish it all were over and
that we had you home again."

A spasm crossed the man's face. "It soon _will_ be over, sweetheart. It
soon _will_ be."

His wife flung him a startled look. "You mean--Oh, Herbert! Isn't there
a single hope--even the tiniest ray?"

Cary took her hands in his, looked into her eyes and his answer breathed
the still unconquered spirit of the South. "There is always hope--as
long as we have a man." Mrs. Cary went into the house, slowly, wearily,
and Cary turned to Virgie.

"Well, little lady," her father said, resting his hand on Virgie's
shining head. "Have you been taking good care of mother--and seeing that
Uncle Billy does his plowing right?"

"Yes, sir," came the prompt response. "Susan Jemima an' me have been
lookin' after everything--but we had to eat up General Butler!"

"General Butler," cried her father, astounded.

"Yes, Daddy--our lastest calf. We named him that 'cause one day when I
was feedin' him with milk he nearly swallowed my silver spoon."

"Ha-ha," laughed the amused soldier, and swept her up in his arms. "If
we could only get rid of all their generals as easy as that we'd promise
not to eat again for a week. Everything else all right?"

"No, sir," said Virgie, dolefully. "All the niggers has runned away--all
'cept Uncle Billy and Sally Ann. Jeems Henry runned away this morning."

"The deuce he did! The young scamp!"

"He's gone to join the Yankees," Virgie continued.

"What's that?" and Cary sprang up to pace to and fro. "I wonder which
way he went?"

"I don' know," whimpered Virgie forlornly. "I only wish I was a soldier
with a big, sharp sword like yours--'cause when the blue boys came I'd
_stick_ 'em in the stomach."

Mrs. Cary was coming down the steps now with a small package of food and
in the roadway Uncle Billy stood feeding and watering his master's
horse. In this bitterest of moments, when his own family had to be the
ones to hurry him along his way, there had come another and greater
danger--peril to those he loved.

"Tell me, dear," he said with his hand warm on his wife's sof